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17 November 2011

The Demonization and Ghettoization of the Working Class

The modern British working class has become
an object of fear and ridicule. Their demonization as feckless, criminalized
and ignorant by media and politicians alike has also become acceptable by the gentrified
young middle-class, who otherwise praises itself with tolerance and acceptance.
This fact has become stereotyped by one hate-filled word: chavs. Owen Jones’
well-argued debut that
I have read just recently explores how the working class has developed from a
strong part in British society to the ‘scum of earth’. In the media, through
characters like Little Britain’sVicky Pollard or Jade Goody the contemporary
working class gets ridiculed to a chav caricature. But also in other parts of
Europe the sneering at the socially deprived is everyday media-life. In Germany
countless docusoaps are relying on the
interest of viewers to mock and caricature the under class. Jones argues that this development was
initiated through the downfall of the previous strong British (trade) unions evoked
by the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher at the end of the 1970s and
continued by Tony Blair’s New Labour and has recently also been associated with David Cameron’s term of the Broken Britain. However, Jones
aspiration lies beyond explaining how the working class has become demonized,
moreover he advocates for a revivified debate about class in general terms.
Thatcherism’s - or neoliberalism’s - attempt to eradicate the working class
through igniting the aspiration for everyone to become middle-class under one’s
own stem also has demonized a debate relying on the division of the society by
class. The aspiration for the
financially deprived very often just means to ‘own more things’. And this
aspiration means economic growth in the neoliberalist thinking. The
“non-aspirational working class” even had no place in New Labour, the party
originating out of British working class. Tony Blair declared upon assuming
office in 1997: “ The New Britain is a meritocracy.” But when Michael Young wrote
the book The
Rise of the Meritocracyback in 1958, “Meritocracy” was not intended to
describe a desirable society – far from it. It was meant to raise the alarm at
what Britain could become. Young warned
that its consequences would mean “that the poor and the disadvantaged would be
done down, and in fact they have been… it is hard indeed in a society that
makes so much of merit to be judged as having none.” All these developments
have fostered growing inequality in British society, one of the most, if not THE
most, unequal society in the Western world. It was not for the government to
redress inequalities, because the conditions of the poor would only improve if
they changed their behaviour.

The chav charicature: Little Britain's Vicky Pollard pictured as a teenage mum in front of a council estate. Image Source: BBC

Looking at British cities renders inequality
and also the demonization of the working class visible. The urban council
estate tenant has become the prototype of the chav
caricature. Jones argues that Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme
added to this fact. Through this policy, which gives council estates tenants
the right to buy the home they are living in, in areas where demand for housing
exceeds supply, the stock of social housing was depleted faster than it was
replaced. The remaining stock of council housing was concentrated in
undesirable areas with little employment opportunity, further isolating and
stigmatising the tenants. Due to the shortage in council homes only the poorest
of the poor are entitled to move into a subsidised home, a fact that has
drastically reduced the diversity in these areas. Instead of working against
these developments in Cameron’s conservative led government this crisis will
get more severe. The Tories called for the scrapping of lifetime council
tenancy agreements. Instead only the most needy would be eligible for five-year
or, at most, ten-year agreements. If it was decided that their conditions had
improved sufficiently, they could be turfed out of their homes and made to rent
privately. Jones suggests that “Council estates would become nothing more than
transit camps for the deprived”. Through these policies combined with plans to
cap benefits to workless families, low-income people face eviction from
relatively richer areas, forcing them into effective ghettoes. According to
estimates by London councils, as many as 250,000 people were at risk of losing
their homes or being forced to move. This form of social “cleansing” would be
the biggest population movement in Britain since World War II. Jones speculates that these facts are
not only economically motivated but also politically, since it would lead to
and exodus of Labour voters from London. But critisims also comes from within
the party, as for example London’s mayor, the Conservative Boris Johnson, came
out publicly to say that he would not accept “Kosovo-style
social cleansing” in the capital. There is a reasonable fear that under
these circumstances London and its still diverse neighbourhoods like the
borough of Hackney for example develops towards a homogenised urban inner city
area with a belt of ghettoes of low-income people at the fringes, comparable to
Paris and its belt of banlieues.

These types of displacement have a profound
impact on the cosmopolitan character of cities. They add to the contemporary development
that cities are under threat to loose their capacity to foster diversity and
bring together people of different classes, ethnicities and religions through
commerce, politics, and civic practices, as argued by Saskia
Sassen. The growing ghettoization of the poor and the rich – albeit in very
different types of ghettos – leaves the middle-classes to bring urbanity to
these cities. And the middle-classes arguably are not always the most diverse
groups in the city. Sassen argues further, that displacement (from countryside
to town or from the city centre to the fringes or even within the city) does
not add to a rich diversity but rather becomes a source of insecurity.

Owen Jones’ book makes us well aware of
these insecurities contemporary society is facing. Although the case he
established is very UK specific it is a topic that addresses most of Western
governments - and cities. In his closing statement he anticipated a revolution
that the current occupy movement is leading:

“At its heart, the demonization of the
working class is the flagrant triumphalism of the rich who, no longer
challenged by those below them, instead point and laugh at them … But it has
not be this way. The folly of a society organized around the interests of
plutocrats has been exposed by an economic crisis sparked by the greed of the
bankers. The new class politics would be a start, to at least build a
counterweight to the hegemonic, unchallenged class politics of the wealthy.
Perhaps then a new society based around people’s needs, rather than private
profit, would be feasible once again. Working-class people have, in the past,
organized to defend their interests; they have demanded to be listened to, and
forced concessions from the hands of the rich and the powerful. Ridiculed or
ignored though they may be, they will do so again.”

The last weeks have shown that the global
occupiers have found a way to organize to defend their interests. And the
working class is part of it. The city is the very site of this revolution.

Related to the decline of British working class: Aditya Chakrabortty's recent article on why Britain doesn't make things any more.

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The city is made up of assemblages built of heterogeneous networks and associations. Multiple and overlapping enactments constitute urban life as a synchronous city.SYNCHRONICITY is a blog excavating these networks and setting them in relationship to each other. SYNCHRONICITYunderstands itself as an extended platform sharing myriad approaches in urbanism, landscape and architecture.